Saturday, February 16, 2008

(UPDATE:At present,the available information regarding the visit of Anne Windsor has prompted the organisers of the protest to ask those attending the picket to assemble opposite Quinns Pub , at the entrance to Clonliffe Road , at 3.30PM , on Saturday February 23 next. Any change to these arrangements will be posted here.)
AN ENGLISH QUEEN.

Press Release/Preas Ráiteas
For release
16ú Feabhra/February 2008

British Royals not welcome in Ireland
Statement by the Vice President of Republican Sinn Féin Des Dalton


"Republican Sinn Féin will be actively protesting at the presence of a
representative of the British Crown in Croke Park on February 23. Such a
visit must be seen for what it is, part of the normalisation of British rule
in Ireland.
Anne Windsor will visit Croke Park not as a private individual but as the
representative of the British Crown. This is an institution which claims
sovereignty over six of the nine counties of Ulster, enforcing that claim
with an army of occupation.
For this reason no representative of the British Crown is welcome in any part
of Ireland."

(Details of this protest will be announced shortly....*SEE ABOVE*)
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EASTER REPUBLICAN COMMEMORATIONS IN DUBLIN , 2008 -
For details of the three up-coming Dublin Easter 2008 Republican Commemorations , click here, here and here.

Sharon.






Thursday, February 14, 2008

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(NOTE : for details of the three up-coming Dublin Easter 2008 Republican Commemorations , click here, here and here.)
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FROM THIS....

HENRY JOY McCRACKEN :

" It was on the Belfast mountains I heard a maid complain.
And she vexed the sweet June evening with her heart broken strain
Saying "Woe is me, life's anguish is more than I can dree.
Since Henry Joy McCracken died on the gallows tree."

At Donegore he proudly rode and he wore a suit of green
And brave though vain at Antrim his sword flashed lightning keen
And when by spies surrounded his band to Slemish fled
He came unto the Cavehill for to rest a weary head.

I watched for him each night long as in our cot he slept
At daybreak to the heather to MacArt's fort we crept
When news came from Greencastle of a good ship anchored nigh
And down by yon wee fountain we met to say good-bye.

He says "My love be cheerful for tears and fears are vain",
He says "My love be hopeful our land shall rise again".
He kissed me ever fondly, he kissed me three times o'er
Saying "Death shall never part us my love for evermore".

That night I climbed the Cavehill and watched till morning blazed
And when its fires had kindled across the loch I gazed
I saw an English tender at anchor off Garmoyle
But alas! no good ship bore him away to France's soil.

And twice that night a tramping came from the old shore road
Twas Ellis and his yeomen, false Niblock with them strode
My father home returning the doleful story told
"Alas", he says, "young Harry Joy for fifty pounds is sold."

"And is it true", I asked her, "yes it is true", she said.
"For to this heart that loved him I pressed his gory head,
And every night pale bleeding his ghost comes to my side,
My Harry, my dead Harry, comes for his promised bride."

Now on the Belfast mountains, this fair maid's voice is still
For in a grave they laid her on high Carnmoney Hill
And the sad waves beneath her chant a requiem for the dead
And the rebel wind shrieks freedom above her weary head."


...TO THIS.

As Liam Mellows predicted in the Treaty debate,on 4th January 1922 - "Men will get into positions , men will hold power , and men who get into positions and hold power will desire to remain undisturbed and will not want to be removed."
Poor Mellows - even he could not predict just how low - to discuss the drinking habits of fictional characters in a soap opera - that those 'positioned men' will go in order to integrate themselves with their new-found 'friends'. McGuinness and his like are truly an embarrassment to all things Irish , not to mention the shame they continue to visit on Irish Republicanism . He should stick to 'Drama Critic' comments in future and leave the issue of British interference on this isle to those of us that are still prepared to try and solve that problem . Of which he is a part.






Wednesday, February 13, 2008

THE CATHOLIC HIERARCHY - PROPPING-UP THE ORANGE STATE........

At a press briefing on May 3rd, 1983, Bishop Cathal Daly declared that a vote for Sinn Fein was 'a wasted vote' , and that people should think seriously before risking being seen as 'supporting violence' . As polling day approached , the rising crescendo of calls from Bishop Daly and other members of the Catholic hierarchy became increasingly explicit in their support for the SDLP. Against the background of this intervention into the arena of nationalist party politics , Patricia Collins sketches the role played by the leadership of the Catholic Church over the past fourteen years against nationalist resistance .
From 'IRIS' magazine , July 1983.

In his infamous 1983 'St Anne's Speech' , Bishop Cahal Daly stated - " Just as unionists are fully justified in maintaining their political convictions , they are also justified in believing in the right and the duty under law to defend these political institutions against the threat of overthrow by armed uprising . There are some who choose to do so by service in security forces or in the police force . There are also people , and not all of them are unionists , who believe that in any civilised society there must be normal policing ; and who therefore choose policing as a career of service to the whole Northern Ireland community .

The republican paramilitary campaign of assassination of members of the UDR and of the RUC is equivalent to a campaign of shooting fellow Irishmen simply because they have different political convictions from nationalists . "
('1169...' Comment : the UDR and the RUC [and , indeed , the PSNI] were/are British-sponsored , salaried and armed wings of Westminster , whose function was/is to see to it that the British writ in Occupied Ireland runs smoothly . They were/are prepared to use force to enforce that writ) .

What real effects can all of this rhetoric have on the nationalist community ? Militarily oppressed , at the bottom of the economic and political heap , half a million nationalists cannot take kindly to Bishop Daly's remarks on the 'achievements' of the Stormont regime and the right of unionists under law to 'defend their political institutions....... '
(MORE LATER).



BALLYMURPHY INTERVIEW.......
From 'IRIS' magazine , July/August 1982.

On the early days of getting things organised in the then new Ballymurphy estate , Anne Stone said - " We settled in , grateful to get a house . We had our ups and downs . When we came to the 'Murph I never thought you could have bought a full stone of coal , and many's the stone of coal we have bought since . We enjoyed life , our social life then was working , work and more work , to bring up the family . Our annual holiday was the weekend bus run to the All-Ireland final ."

Asked about the situation in Ballymurphy during August 1969 (British-provoked rioting broke out) , Anne Stone replied : " We arrived back in Ballymurphy on the morning of August 15th . We'd been across in England for our eldest daughter's wedding . The whole place here was ablaze . The people didn't know what was happening then . When we moved into this terrace , of the five houses in it three were non-Catholic . No-one at first knew where they stood or what they believed in , only those who knew what Irish history was all about . "

On their imprisoned son , Liam , she said : " Liam was imprisoned in 1976 on a 15-year sentence , the only man from Ballymurphy still in the Cages, and the longest-serving prisoner from Ballymurphy itself . What's he going to come out to ? All his mates now are in the hell-holes of the H-Blocks. In 1972 he was working three nights a week in Kelly's Bar for pocket money . He was unlucky enough to be there on May 13th , 1972 , when the bar was bombed in a sectarian attack , and he himself was shot . He was in the hospital for three months and came out on crutches . He had been going to St. Mary's grammar school , but when he came out of hospital he just started going to St. Thomas' secondary school . From when he went into Long Kesh our life has been cut in two....... "
(MORE LATER).





REPUBLICAN MOURNERS DEFEAT RUC.......
Between December 1983 and May 1987 , over 25 republican or nationalist funerals were systematically attacked by the RUC as a matter of deliberate British policy . The objective was to drive mourners off the streets so that later Britain could claim dwindling support for republicanism as 'evidenced' by the small numbers attending IRA funerals . As Jane Plunkett reports , the opposite happened . More and more people came out to defend the remains of republican dead , the RUC were exposed as being as brutal and sectarian as ever , and these two factors , combined with damaging international news coverage , eventually forced the British government to reverse its policy of attacking republican funerals .
From 'IRIS' magazine , October 1987.

On Sunday , April 5th , 1987 , members of the (P)IRA's Belfast Brigade fired a volley of shots in final salute to their comrade Larry Marley, who had been shot dead in his home by the UVF on April 2nd . On Monday , the planned day of the funeral , the RUC saturated the Ardoyne area and repeatedly refused to move back from the family home to allow a 20-foot space on either side of the hearse .

On two consecutive days , the family decided to postpone Larry Marley's funeral , because they feared that someone would be killed by the RUC and in order to ensure , in the words of Lawrence Marley Jr , " that my father is buried with honour and dignity ." The RUC pretext for their aggression , once again , was the possibility of a (P)IRA firing party - in fact , photographs of Sunday's firing party were already in circulation . The RUC's real aim still was to humiliate mourners .

Local priests and the Marley family made frantic attempts to contact the Catholic Hierarchy , but got no help . On the second day of the siege , the RUC force was doubled and , by the third day , a sense of crisis permeated nationalist Belfast . Large crowds had attended evening protest meetings in West and North Belfast . On the Wednesday , thousands of people suspended their usual activities , came out of work and journeyed from distant towns , to ensure a dead republican his right to a dignified burial . The British crown forces increased their own numbers in anticipation . Scenes of hand-to-hand fighting were to follow.......
(MORE LATER).







Monday, February 11, 2008

"...young babies and adults , some ninety years of age.."

"Plunket carried out his biggest evictions in November 1860. During the preceding days large numbers of police were drafted into the area. Troops came from the surrounding towns and a company of the 24th Infantry from the Curragh. The local police did not take part. The people were terrified and the scenes of the helplessness and defeat and sadness were indescribable. Such troop movement had never been seen in the area. The eviction process lasted for three days.
On the first day a large eviction force under the command of Col. Knox, the Mayo High Sheriff, proceeded from Cappaduff bridge to begin the grizzly task. The houses were razed to the ground by the crowbar brigade and then handed over to Plunkett's men. Fr Lavelle and the tenants looked on helplessly and made no resistance -- they just accepted the finality of it all. Tenants on adjoining estates were warned not to interfere in any way such as providing shelter or solace to the evicted, so the unfortunates, some as old as ninety years and young babies, had to fend for themselves on the mountainside on a cold, wet November's night.... "

(From here)




"The work of undermining the population is going on stealthily, but steadily. Each succeeding day witnesses its devastation - more terrible than the simoon and more deadly than the plague. We do not say that there exists a conspiracy to uproot the 'mere Irish'; but we do aver, that the fearful system of wholesale ejectment, of which we daily hear, and which we daily behold, is a mockery of the eternal laws of God - a flagrant outrage of the principles of nature. Whole districts are cleared. Not a roof-tree is to be seen where the happy cottage of the labourer or the snug homestead of the farmer at no distant day cheered the landscape. The ditch side, the dripping rain, the cold sleet are the covering of the wretched outcast the moment the cabin is tumbled over him; for who dare give shelter of protection from 'the pelting or the pitiless storm?' Who has the temerity to afford him the ordinary rites of hospitality, when the warrant has been signed for his extinction... ? "
(From 'The Tipperary Vindicator' newspaper , 1844-1849, as quoted here)





"During the famous, or rather infamous, Partry evictions, an old man of eighty and a woman of seventy-four were amongst the number of those who suffered for their ancient faith. They were driven from the home which their parents and grandfathers had occupied, in a pitiless storm of sleet and snow. The aged woman utters some slight complaint; but her noble-hearted aged husband consoles her with this answer: "The sufferings and death of Jesus Christ were bitterer still." Sixty-nine souls were cast out of doors that day. Well might the Times newspaper say: "These evictions are a hideous scandal; and the bishop should rather die than be guilty of such a crime." Yet, who can count up all the evictions, massacres, tortures, and punishments which this people has endured...?"
(From here)
The root cause of the above barbarity is still militarily and politically represented on this isle . Some of the surviving generations of the above victims are determined that the evils which were inflicted on us will not be visited - or , indeed , even have the potential to be visited - on future generations . You can help...






Sunday, February 10, 2008

BOOT-BOYS FOR THE 'UNION' .....


Former British soldier gets 3 years’ jail for urinating on dying woman.

'A man who urinated on a disabled woman and sprayed her with shaving foam as she lay dying in the street was jailed for three years yesterday.
Anthony Anderson, 27, Hartlepool, was sentenced for outraging public decency when he degraded 50-year-old Christine Lakinski, who had collapsed in July this year.
Teesside Crown Court heard how Anderson, a former soldier, was celebrating his 27th birthday on the day he degraded his victim. She had been visiting friends and was walking home with some laminate flooring when she collapsed, striking her head as she fell.
She was spotted by a girlfriend of one of Anderson’s friends and a group gathered around her body. Anderson kicked her on the foot, then poured a bowl of water over her prone body, but she did not respond. Anderson then told his friends he was going to urinate on the woman as one of them filmed it on his mobile phone. In an ordeal lasting around 30 minutes Anderson also used shaving foam from a can to further degrade his victim.
Outside court, Ms Lakinski’s family read a statement, which said:
“We would like to thank the judge for his decision to jail Anthony Anderson.
We hope that prison will give him time to reflect on his disgusting actions as well as the opportunity to look at his conscience.
We remain totally shocked that anyone could behave in such an appalling way.”


Anderson was with his friends Scott Clement and Simon Whitehead when the humiliation took place, the court heard. The group left her motionless on the pavement and no-one thought to ring an ambulance until they had got ready to go nightclubbing, some 20 minutes later. Paramedics arrived about an hour after she collapsed, and found no sign of life. A postmortem revealed she died from pancreatic failure. Police traced the 999 call to Mr Clement and Anderson was arrested that night in a nightclub.'
(From here.)

A not unusual example of the calibre and mentality of British 'peace-keepers' that have 'served their country' , and not only on these shores . Not only are they unfit for any other job , but they are unfit to belong to the human race. May that poor woman Rest In Peace .